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Cook, Arthur B.
Zeus: a study in ancient religion (Band 3,1): Zeus god of the dark sky (earthquake, clouds, wind, dew, rain, meteorits): Text and notes — Cambridge, 1940

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https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.14698#0361

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Rain-magic in ancient Greece 297

a bronze car and the recital of a prayer for rain. Coins of the town
show this car, always with an amphora or a fluted bowl resting upon
it, and often with a raven or two perched on its wheels .

At Eleusis the first formal act of the yearly festival was the
proclamation, on Boedromion 162, 'To the sea, initiates3! On heating
this, the assembled multitude hurried down to bathe in the nearest
salt water. Passing through a gate, which adjoined the Dionysion
in the south of the town and is possibly to be identified with the
Itonian Gate* they made their way to two lagoons called the
Rheitoi, sacred to Demeter and Kore respectively6. More than one
notorious incident was connected with their wholesale immersion
It was said' that Phryne, who habitually wore a clinging chitdn and
corned to use the public baths, nevertheless at the Eleusinia and
^ the Poseidonia laid aside all her garments, loosened her hair
and stepped into the sea before the whole concourse of people a
^ght which inspired Apelles to paint his Aphrodite Anadyomene
Again, it was remembered that in 339 B.C., when the initiates had
gone down to purify themselves in the sea, a shark carried on one
-some said two-of their number'. This curious happening,
whether fact or figment, seems to have provoked imitation, tor we
are told" that on another occasion, when an initiate was washing a
Pig in the harbour of Kantharos at the Peiraieus, a shark seized
and bit off the lower half of his body. The Eleusinian bathe has
been commonly regarded as a rite of purification11, and as sucn

1 Supra ii. 83, ff. figs. 788-79*. S. W. Grose in the McClean Cat. Coins ii. «*
n°. 4566 pi. 171, 20 ( = my fig. 791) says oddly 'insect on r. wheel.

- Plout. deglor. Ath. 7, v. Camill. 19. P- Pkoc- 6< ™)™n- 3* «••■»•_ Hnrr:,on
D J On d\a5e, ^M see Mommsen Feste d. Stadt Athcn pp. 207, 214 '44,

Gk. A'e/.2 p. I52 t, P. Foucart La mystcrcs t&eUW Pans .914 P- 3*4
P- Stengel Die griechischen JTullusaltertiimer mnchen 19*0 p. ite-
„ 4 Corp. inscr. Att. iv. 1 a no u a, 34 ff. = Michel RtetuU <t Inscr. gr. no. JJ, 34
ff- = Dittenbelger Syll in r' Gr?- no. Jo, 34 ff--*-3 ™- 93. 34 ff- (Attic decree of

70 ^'"wlo (cal tSv ttvXox d'\a5e e[x>fXa!l5'"Kr"' oI *u5<rTal-

Mommsen Feste d. Stadt Athcn p. 215 n. r, P. Foucart op. cit. p. 315.
n. 6 P^us. u 38. Hesych. v.xLd. Phot. lex. s.v. 'Pcrd (citing Soph./ntf- 93&
Ulndorf, 1089 Jebb), et. mag. p. 703, 13 C, Favorin. lex. p. 1617, 7 «■
Athen. 590 p.

* Overbeck^n>7«^« P- 349 ff. nos. 1846-.863, A. Reinach Textes grecs et lat<»>
r'l"tifs a VhUtoire de la peinture ancienne Paris 1911 L 33' & »os- 4*5-445 l«* '

a3!"' 1 dates the incident 'avant 340').
Schol. Aischin. r'n Cto. 130 p. 45 a 8 ff. Baiter—Sauppe.
Plout. z/. P/i^ ,

» « t> Mfcum* Art t6 ica9ap9^«, cp. Hesych. M». r«T<" -
 
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